We'd heard Airlie Beach was crowded and overrun with backpackers so took a chance and headed to Conway Beach instead, which is 30 km or so south of Airlie Beach. It's a tiny fishing village with a handful of houses and a caravan park that also doubles as the local store, restaurant and fish n chip shop. The seemingly only reason people visit is to fish but the caravan park owners have been clever and made the park into a kids paradise. There's a water park and wa...

The Queensland early sun rise finally worked to our advantage the morning we left 1770 and we were on the road by 8am. We had around 450 km to travel which in the NT and WA would have taken us 4-5 hours but with the poor roads, constant trucks and never-ending roadworks as well as frequent towns, we pulled into Carmila Beach 7 hours later. Carmila Beach is a free campsite stretching along the beach front, about 6 km off the Bruce Hwy. We found a secluded spot l...

The sun came out the morning we left Bundaberg and stayed out for our entire stay at the next stop, 1770. This tiny little place is a true gem and a great destination to relax. This part of the coast was where Captain Cook first landed in Queensland in 1770, hence the name and it turned out to be a great place for a history lesson for the kids. The campground is out on a point, looking across a large inlet and river entrance, back towards the mainland. 1770 is...

We left the Bunya Mountains via a steep and winding road (past the sign saying not suitable for vans or trailers) and drove towards Bundaberg. Our lunch stop at Childers was rained out as a large tropical downpour passed through and the clouds continued to look ominous as we approached Bundaberg. After picking up some supplies in town we headed through Bundaberg and past all the flood devastated buildings to Moore Park where Al and Craig live in a beautiful Queen...

We had a long day driving north from Dubbo towards the Qld border. It was very uneventful, aside from a stop beside the lake in Narrabri for lunch. I managed to knock a whole jar of asparagus over myself, which wouldn't have been quite so bad except that I knew we were at least 24 hours away from a shower. The local kids looked quite surprised when I waded into the lake to rinse off! That evening we started to set up the van at a roadside stop 30km south of the ...